Ingredients
2 cup sugar
1/2 cup light corn syrup
1/2 cup water
2 cup pecan halves
1/4 cup butter
1 tbsp vanilla
Directions
Heat the sugar, syrup, water, and pecans in a heavy saucepan until the
sugar is disolved. Bring the mixture to the boil, stirring
occasionally, until it reaches the soft ball stage (240F). Remove the
saucepan from the heat and add butter and vanilla.
Allow candy to cool. Whip until the mixture gradually changes to
an opaque color and becomes creamy. Drop by tablespoonfuls onto a
buttered cookie sheet and allow to harden. Makes two dozen. From
Nathalie Dupree's New Southern Cooking Nathalie Dupree writes,
"Pralines are traditionally given as Christmas gifts. Their
sweetness will linger in your mouth long after the candy is gone."
Servings: 24 servings
Pecan Pralines - Dupree Recipe brought to you by Recipe Ideas
Categories: Candy; Nut; Pecan
The History of Recipes
It is quite possible to track the history of recipes back into the far past, in fact as far back into history as the Egypt of the Pharoahs, and maybe further still. Having said that, mostly, these ancient cookbooks were just very simple pictorial recipes for preparing food.
Interestingly, the most ancient recipe discovered, according to Professor Solomon Katz, are some clay tablets in Sumerian which describe the making of bread which is then used to make a drink, quite possibly a form of beer as it is recorded as making people feel exhilarated and blissful. During Roman times 25BC a man called Apicius created a number of documents showing how to cook the recipes enjoyed by wealthy roman citizens. In his publication, he recounts how the meals of wealthy Romans were separated into appetizers, entrees and desserts, a style of dining still practiced today. Additionally, he tells us how the cooks of Roman times were skilled in the use of a wide range of herbs and spices, including a few that will be familiar to modern chefs like thyme, rue and parsley. Later, in the 15th century, knights returning from the crusades brought us a variety of foods and spices from the holy land, including coriander, parsley, basil and rosemary. The introduction of these new foods and spices created an outbreak in recipe books, many of which still exist in private collections. During the succeeding few centuries, the rich families of Wesstern Europe strove to serve the most extravagent banquests, and consequentially the best cooks and their collection of recipes were greatly in demand. Notwithstanding that, it was during the 1800s that cookery and recipe collections really came of age. Mrs Beeton in the UK, and Fannie Farmer in the US, devoted much of their lives to assembling, verifying, and publishing recipes to allow everyone to enjoy them. By the time we get to the twentieth century, cooking publications were greatly in demand as a result of better eduction, more leisure time and being a little richer. Like it or not, the introduction of TV brings us TV chefs and the demand for the spin-off recipe books. Which brings us neatly to the present day and the invention of computers and the internet, allowing everybody to access massive numbers of recipes just like those on our web site. |
We hope you enjoy this Pecan Pralines Dupree recipe.
